


All's Fair in Love and War Games

by MalevolentMagpie



Series: Pull My Trigger [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - James Bond Fusion, Barely Legal, Crack Treated Seriously, F/F, Inspired by youtube comments, M/M, Revenge, Silly, Still dumb tho, They left and took the kids, but more than either of these it’s a story about Allura’s individual journey to healing, it's kind of 50/50 Pallura/Sheith, no beta - we die like men, past shallura, this one got a bit more serious than its predecessor bc Allura is a ball of angst, work with me here, you’re gonna have to suspend a LOT of disbelief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24300919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalevolentMagpie/pseuds/MalevolentMagpie
Summary: Allura's husband left her for another man - specifically, his archnemesis. That just won't stand...
Relationships: Allura/Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: Pull My Trigger [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750324
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Genghis Khan](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/623116) by Miike Snow. 



> Ok. Despite my authorship history, I swear I don’t actually ship Pallura really. It’s just that this story is based off of YT comments that specifically requested F/F for the wife character and I… I’m just gonna say it. I kind of hate Romelle. I just can’t write her character. As for Acxa, Veronica, and the MFE pilots, they’re a bit boring. The only other major female character whose personality catches my attention aside from Pidge and Allura is Krolia, and I couldn’t ship Allura with Keith’s mother - that would just be… SO weird.

Many years had passed since she had last walked these halls, blinding in their light and clarity. The sunlight seemed magnified as it filtered through the towering glass walls of the lobby, reflecting off the pristine white floor and straight at her as if in interrogation. It was as unwelcome in her current state as it had been the last time she was here, in her grief. 

Her heels echoed thunderously through the room and battered her eardrums. She closed her eyes against the visual and auditory onslaught and massaged her temples. Hangovers were apparently not as kind these days as they were in her younger years. 

_...clack! _

And these damn heels weren’t helping. Did they have steel plates bolted to the bottom? God, they were so  _ loud _ . And green. Terribly, awfully green against her very magenta suit dress. She didn’t even think she  _ owned _ a magenta suit dress, until she was already outside of the house and realized what she had apparently put on this morning. 

_ Clack, clack.  _

This wasn’t her.  _ Her  _ outfits were usually impeccably coordinated. She had a pair of heels for every conceivable top, and her lipstick was never a single shade off from complementary. Today she didn’t even think she had applied lipstick to begin with.

_ Clack, Clack, Clack. _

“Ma’am!” The receptionist instantly dropped the papers he had been shuffling, and his hands began desperately, blindly roving all over the desk to reach the phone. 

She waved him away as she strolled breezily past the security checkpoint, not even noticing the flummoxed guards who stepped back uncertainly when the receptionist gesticulated wildly at them to let her through without a word. Inside the elevators, she surreptitiously checked her breath. Despite Kolivan technically working for her, his respect was not unconditional. She couldn’t afford to have him doubt her judgment this time. It still smelled slightly of whiskey; she would keep her distance while talking.

The office was just as she remembered it: clean, neat, almost spartan in its minimalism. The only hint of individuality was the liquor cabinet that was currently open, a bottle inside uncorked. The 25 year. Maybe she could wheedle Kolivan into pouring her a glass later. 

Behind the massive space-age desk sat Kolivan, significantly more gray and stern than she remembered - but then again it had been so long she wasn’t sure if that was actually true. Standing before the desk was a short-statured, dark-haired agent, still in his muddy combat gear and tactical mask; he turned and stood to the side as she strode past him and approached the desk.

Kolivan’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. “Allura?”

The masked agent beside her startled and drew back, but she paid him no mind. 

“Kolivan.”

“It has been a long time. What brings you into the office, after…?” He didn’t finish the sentence. “...How is the family?”

Her expression turned bitter, but with some effort she wrangled it back into something more neutral. “Well, I believe.” 

Kolivan raised an eyebrow. “You believe?”

“I am here because it is time I finally do as you have been telling me for years. It is time I take up my father’s work. The company does belong to me, after all. I should take responsibility for it.”

“You… want to lead the company, finally? I am certainly pleased to hear it. But may I ask what has led to this sudden change of heart? The last time we spoke, you assured me you were determined to leave this life behind and settle down as a housewife and mother.”

“I…” There was no avoiding it. “There have been some… family issues…” She looked askance at the stranger in the room, suddenly newly aware of their audience.

He seemed to be subtly panicking, making small, quick movements as if he wanted to exit but was afraid of disturbing the conversation to take his leave. When Allura looked his way, he took his opportunity and, with a warble that not even the tactical mask’s voice modulator could hide, stuttered out, “I- I should go! I’m just gonna- okay.” He started backing away from Allura as he would a venomous cobra he had stumbled across in the wild.

Kolivan turned to look at him as if he had forgotten the agent was still in the room. “Ah yes, you are dismissed 004. Before you go, however, salute your new commanding officer - Allura, daughter of Alfor, sole heir to and owner of the Altean Institute and its corporate constituencies. Note that this is  _ not _ public knowledge. As always, what you have heard here remains confidential.” 

Agent 004 nodded quickly a few times too many, saluting hurriedly while still backing away, then he was gone. 

“He couldn’t get away fast enough,” she mused. 

Kolivan sighed deeply. “He is… eccentric, but he’s unfortunately our best agent. It is likely he has much on his mind lately; he just recently got married.”

Allura sniffed wetly. “That’s nice…”

~~~

Keith was certain that he was at this moment, in this very hallway, setting a new world record for speed walking. He couldn’t help but glance behind him every few minutes, sure he would be followed from Kolivan’s office. 

_ Oh my god. Oh my god.  _ It was Allura. She was here. And she was the owner of the Altean Institute. Keith tried to rack his brain for any memory of Shiro telling him his (ex-)wife’s maiden name had been Altea, but he was certain it had been something different. Something floral. Of course, it made sense that she had a fake surname, if her background was supposed to be a secret to the lay public. It was only when he was once again safely behind his locked office door that he finally removed his mask. 

_ Fucking hell _ . Of  _ course _ Shiro would marry the heir to what had eventually become his rival empire. That man was like a magnet for trouble. 

“God fucking damn it,” Keith hissed out. The profanities continued in a steady stream under his breath as he shakily reached for his phone and started to dial his husband’s number by heart. Then he stopped.  _ Should  _ he tell Shiro? Keith took a deep breath, repeating in his mind what Shiro always liked to say: “Patience yields focus.” 

He forced his racing mind to slow down, forming a mental list of pros and cons as he paced across the tiny room. Shiro would freak out. He would be stressed. He would worry for Keith. He would feel even more guilty than he already did. 

Keith didn’t like reminding Shiro of Allura or their previous life together. He knew that the thought of what Shiro had thoughtlessly done to Allura was enough to keep his husband up at night, just as he knew that Shiro had never meant to hurt her and would rather lose his other arm than hurt her again. 

_ That’s right _ , Keith told himself.  _ This would only hurt Shiro _ . It would only be a cruel reminder of what he already spent so much of his time worrying about. Keith didn’t let himself think that just maybe, the bigger motivator in his mind was the ever-present, insuppressible fear that Shiro would ultimately change his mind. That he would run back to Allura out of guilt, or love, or a sense of duty. Even the rose gold band on Keith’s left hand was sometimes not enough to banish that fear entirely. Shiro had already left one marriage, after all, and that one offered him so much more - the security of its heteronormative structure, the undeniable biological connection via their daughter, Haru. Whereas Keith… What did Keith have to offer in comparison? A lifetime with a rash, hotheaded mess made of social awkwardness and bad decisions. 

“Of course, she had to be  _ beautiful, _ too,” he muttered darkly with his thumb between his teeth.

Sharp knocks on his office door pulled him out of his thought spiral. He opened it to a bushy head of auburn hair, wide-brimmed glasses, and an examining stare that seemed to intuit too much at once. 

“We can hear you pacing and stewing from out there. What’s going on?” 

“Pidge. N- nothing’s going on. Everything’s fine.” 

She leveled a dry stare at him. “Damn, Altea’s hiring department is really slipping because for a secret agent you are a  _ terrible _ liar.” 

He huffed in amusement. “Only with you. And should you be cursing like that?” 

Pidge ignored his question and plopped herself down on the small loveseat against the wall. “Out with it.”

“Come on, Pidge. I can’t tell you, you wouldn’t understand. It’s… it’s adult stuff. It’s complicated.” 

She reared back, offended. “I’m 17, not seven. The hell are you talking about, ‘adult stuff’? What, does Shiro have some sort of weird kink or something? How much worse could it get than your dismemberment fetish?” 

Keith rolled his eyes. “For the  _ last. time:  _ Shiro and I do  _ not _ have a dismemberment fetish. It was  _ one _ arm. And it was  _ one  _ time. And it was an accident! Well, okay, not an accident because I did swing the sword, but it’s not like I was  _ trying _ to maim him - it was self-defense! We were sworn enemies at the time!”

“Ok,” said Pidge as if she could not possibly care less. “So, what is it this time? Necrophilia?” 

“That’s gross.”

“Don’t kink-shame, bruh.”

“Out! Out of my office! Don’t you have school or something? Do your parents and brother even know you hang out here all the time?” 

“Sort of… Technically, I’m on school-approved leave to do a tech internship with Hunk.” 

“All I ever see you two do in the lab is eat junk food and play video games.” 

“Video games are technology,” she replied smugly before he shut the door behind her. Maybe he should have better appreciated his life as a single child before Pidge announced herself his honorary sister. 

_ “Don’t forget the dance is this Saturday!” _ came the muffled voice from outside his door. 

He groaned.

~~~

Kolivan had immediately canceled all his meetings and shown Allura about the building, reacquainting her with the various departments and labs and the progress they had made in their cover business as a research firm. She matched three strides to every two of his, attempting to pay attention through her fast-developing, pounding headache. 

“...in the labs. Therefore, we utilize the- Allura, are you feeling alright?” 

She snapped her head up. “Huh? Oh, yes. Quite alright.” 

Kolivan assessed her silently, then nodded. “It is time for lunch, anyway. We should take a break.” 

Too relieved to protest, she followed him to the massive cafeteria, to a remote corner. He left her to find seating and reappeared with two metal trays filled with food. Silently, he also slid over a packet of painkillers.

Allura smiled. “Thank you, by the way. For not pushing.”

“You will tell me when you are ready,” he replied simply. 

In spite of her surroundings and the deadly grip she had held on her feelings since she had arrived, Allura felt the now-familiar prickling behind her eyes. She had reached her limit for the day. “He took the kid. He left and he took our daughter.”

“Your husband?”

“Ex-husband,” she whispered, attempting to wipe away the fresh tears as soon as they sprang forth. When she finally chanced a look, she saw Kolivan squirming slightly in his seat. A military man in every sense of the word, he was clearly unused to playing the role of emotional support. 

“I am sorry,” he said at length. “Though we never met, I imagine you must have loved him and your child very much to have left everything behind for them.”

“I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry I never let you meet them. I just wanted to protect them from all this. I wanted to leave all of you behind and start over with my own little family.”

“Apologies are not needed. I understand. If I could have done the same with my wife, I would have. But Allura, losing your family is not a good reason to take over a company. You are not in your right mind at the moment.” 

_ ‘Right mind’? _ She supposed she  _ wasn’t _ in her right mind. Hadn’t been since Shiro walked out with that sad, apologetic look in his eyes and Haru in his arms. What kind of person would she be if she  _ was  _ in her right mind in this situation? 

Allura looked down at her hands and chuckled, a low laugh that slowly built up, louder and more uncontrolled until Kolivan leaned back with a discomfited look on his face. 

“I’m sorry…” she said again. “I’m sorry that you seem to think I was asking.”

~~~

In the coming months, Allura slowly assumed control of the company. For the most part, she still allowed Kolivan to continue running operations as he saw fit while she made plans to personally commandeer a hand-picked group of agents and researchers for her own particular ends. When her preparations were finally in place, she asked Kolivan for his best agents and most cohesive team, to which he had reluctantly responded by sending her his best agent, 004, and the team with which he normally operated, consisting of a lanky fellow agent, a stocky tech lead, and a high schooler. 

Allura lifted one delicate eyebrow to look the last one in the eye (she had to bend down) on the first day they arrived in her newly-acquired departmental headquarters. 

“You’re… in high school?” She turned from the kid to Kolivan. “I thought I asked you for your best team.” 

Impassive as always, he merely nodded towards the tiny girl and the others. “They  _ are _ our best. An… unconventional team, but they get results.”

“Hey!” the kid piped up. “I may be in high school, lady, but I’m the best asset on this team.” 

Kolivan frowned, but didn’t deny it. Allura smiled. 

“Are you even old enough to be working here?”

“Just turned 18,” the girl -Pidge, Allura recalled- said proudly with a cheeky wink at her new boss. “I’m doing this as a summer internship before starting college in the fall.” 

“...Right. Well then, welcome aboard. You may go, Kolivan. All of you, follow me for the mission briefing.” 

Allura led them to the team workspace, a wide open area with five desks spread out amidst a veritable cornucopia of widescreen monitors, computer towers, and surveillance paraphernalia. The four agents quickly claimed their desks and chairs while Allura observed them. Pidge and the tall one, Hunk, immediately set about making themselves comfortable at their new battle stations. The lanky, smooth one, Lance, opted instead for launching a truly embarrassing attempt at flirting. But their ace in the hole, Agent 004, drew most of her attention. Of all the team, he alone remained masked and hooded, leaned back against the edge of his desk, arms crossed and shoulders hunched as if trying to disappear into thin air. 

“What can you tell me about 004?” she interrupted one of Lance’s pickup lines in a low voice, nodding towards the man at the other end of the large room.

Lance looked nervous for a moment, but not surprised she had asked. “Oh, him? Don’t worry about him - he’s just a weirdo like that. Very private about his face, name, everything - practically paranoid. Takes his job  _ way  _ too seriously, if you catch my drift.” Lance winked. “But he’s a great agent, as much as it pains me to say it. If you just let him do his thing in his own style, he’ll get the job done, guaranteed.”

“Hmm.” 

Clearing her throat, she stepped towards a wall with a floor-length screen. The team’s chatter died when the monitor came to life to show what appeared to be surveillance footage of the inside of a bedroom. It was a rather messy bedroom, with an invitingly plump bed that had mismatched pillowcases and scratched bed posts that evidenced that a cat lived in this home. 

Allura turned to face her new team. “Your new mission is about to walk through the doors of this bedroom in the video. The goal is complete surveillance. I want to know everything about their lives: what they eat, what they drink, where they go, who they talk to. I want to know what they say to each other and about each other. Do you understand?” 

However, if the team heard her they did not immediately respond. All stood frozen in place, eyes glued to the screen as the sounds of shuffling feet came through the room’s speakers. Allura turned back to the screen. There, in grainy black and white, was her husband, sliding into the right side of the bed as he always used to do in their old home. And there, slipping under the covers beside her husband, was a familiar face she had only seen a few times before, in pictures. Her husband’s ‘good friend’. Keith. 

The two men exchanged loving caresses for a while, looking fondly into each other’s eyes in a way that would have made any stranger watching uncomfortable. For Allura, it was like a dagger through her heart. She could never recall a single instance in which Shiro had looked at her like that, or kissed her in that way, or lovingly stroked her hair the way he did to the dark-haired man in the video. Blinking away the wetness in her eyes, she turned back to her still-frozen team. Some continued to watch the video uncomfortably. Others seemed to be trying to avert their eyes as if it was awkward to watch. Perhaps Kolivan had sent her newbies instead of seasoned intelligence workers, after all. 

“I want you especially to find out everything you can about the black-haired man on the far end of the bed. His first name is Keith, last name possibly Shirogane at the moment. But it would have changed only recently, if at all.” 

Behind her, the two men in the video had settled beside each other, propped up against the headboard, reading a newspaper and chatting. Their voices came through tinny and muted.

_ “Hey remember the time I almost killed you?”  _

_ “Heh yeah I remember that honey.” _

Allura continued watching with an icy stare. “You’re not getting away from me,” she muttered to herself. 

“Erm, boss lady?” Hunk caught her gaze. “Are we allowed to ask why we’re targeting these, uh, random strange men? They appear to be Innocents.”

Her face twisted into what she assumed could be called a smile, almost of its own volition. “The man with the white hair you see here is my husband,” she gave by way of explanation. “And we are going to make his life a living hell.”

~~~

Keith’s life was a living hell. He had been working for Allura, unbeknownst to her, for two weeks now, and was so continuously stressed he would not have been surprised if any day now he grew a white streak of hair to match Shiro’s. At work, he kept a low profile, speaking as little as possible and generally banking on performing the perfect loner persona to keep Allura from recognizing in him the same man she watched in videotapes for hours on end. Allura had mercifully not questioned his ever-present mask and hood, and though he had thoroughly debriefed his team on the situation before their transfer and prepared them to help him fly under her radar, he was still incredulous that it was working so far. 

But there were many added sources of stress. First, there was the grating way in which she insisted on calling Shiro her ‘husband.’ Each time she did, Keith would take a deep breath beneath his mask and visualize himself smacking her with the copies of the long-processed divorce papers that were sitting in his filing cabinet at home.

Then there was the surveillance. She had somehow managed to bug their  _ bedroom _ , their most private, personal space, and even knowing this, Keith couldn’t now do anything about it, or else risk blowing his cover at work. For the past two weeks he had managed to seduce and generally convince Shiro into keeping their intimacy outside the bedroom by extolling the virtues of couch sex, dinner table sex, and bathroom blowjobs, but it wouldn’t work forever. Particularly when they had to worry about their daughter Haru walking in at any moment. 

All in all, Keith was exhausted. If Shiro’s ex-wife had wanted revenge or punishment for taking her man, she was unwittingly getting it. He felt like a walking, empty husk, both at work and at home.

Shiro noticed, of course, insisting that Keith eat dinner early tonight and get to bed. Keith nodded along and let himself get shepherded from the table to the shower and then to the bedroom. As tired as he was, he didn’t notice Shiro locking the door behind them and getting undressed until he felt a familiar pressure behind him as his husband wrapped two strong arms around his waist. 

“W- wait, darlin’, no-” Keith twisted around, still encircled in the embrace.

“No?” Shiro pouted adorably. Beneath the playfulness, however, there was also a kernel of hurt.

“I mean, not no but... It’s just, why don’t we move this to the shower?”

“We were just  _ in _ the shower,” Shiro mumbled messily against his damp skin, trailing open-mouth kisses down his collarbone. “I wanna take you on our comfy bed…”

Keith tried to control the shiver that ran down his spine at the sensation. Shiro’s every touch and word was electrifying. “I- I want that too, honey, but…”

“But nothing,” the larger man refuted, picking Keith up by his thighs and wetly attacking his mouth like a drowning man diving for oxygen. 

Keith groaned, momentarily forgetting everything except Shiro’s hands in his hair, his lips on his mouth, his body pressed up against him. Vaguely, he still registered the surveillance threat that hovered unseen in the dark corners of their room, but his mind was spinning deliciously and somehow in this moment he couldn’t even bring himself to care who was watching or how. Even when Shiro stuffed and rode him until tears of pleasure ran down his cheeks, Keith just moaned obscenely and gave a mental middle finger to their secret audience.

Later, blissfully wiped out post-orgasm, he tried to rally his last remaining brain cells to give at least a single fuck about the show they had just (in)advertently put on for Shiro’s ex-wife (and his poor coworkers), but he still couldn’t. He fell asleep to a smug feeling of accomplishment at the thought of Allura trying to call Shiro  _ ‘her  _ husband’ again after watching  _ that.  _

The morning after was a different story. Keith walked into their workspace half an hour late, wishing he could just glue his palm permanently to his forehead so as to not have to see the faces of his teammates. And they were just as bad as he anticipated. Pidge’s glare felt like it would bore a hole through his skull. Lance was pale and horrified. Hunk looked like he was about to be sick. To top it all off, Allura had not yet arrived, which left them all free to wax at length about Keith’s heartless betrayal. 

“What the  _ fuck _ , Keith? We were forced to  _ watch _ that!”

“-what has been seen cannot be unseen...”

“-want my auditory virginity back. Just  _ why _ did you have to  _ moan _ like that? It’s been playing on a loop in my mind all morning like an intrusive thought! Eugh!”

“-I think I’m gonna be sick.” 

Keith sighed. “Ok, ok, I know, I’m sorry. It’s not like I planned for it to happen like that. It just… things got out of hand. Give me a break, guys. I can’t even be intimate with my own  _ husband _ these days.  _ There’s only so much a man can take!” _

“That’s what I thought, then I saw what Shiro did with his fist.”

“Ugh Pidge stop. I’m seriously gonna hurl,” Hunk whispered faintly.

They of course maintained a perfect silence once Allura arrived, but Keith could tell the very moment she began to watch the night’s video feed on her computer. Her cheeks flushed bright crimson, yet she didn’t look away the entire time. The indignant rage he had been waiting for never came. In its place he saw only a kind of sad longing behind her eyes, and he wondered for the first time what it must be like to see the memories of your own passionless marriage through the contrasting lens of your ex-partner’s current happiness. That afternoon, Keith went on a coffee run for their whole team, and for Allura he brought back a particularly elaborate frappuccino.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Limited time only: the Sorry I Stole Your Husband and Fucked His Brains Out In Front of You Frappuccino.
> 
> Also, Suspense of Disbelief note:   
> ‘How,’ you say, ‘could Allura possibly know where they live and yet know nothing about Keith still?’   
> ‘Well you see,’ I say, ‘I needed the delicious angst of Keith fucking Shiro in full awareness of Allura watching, so I made it thus. Something something, Keith and Shiro’s intelligence experience has led to them being super careful about leaving any identity information tied to their physical living space.’ _Hand waving intensifies._


	2. Chapter 2

Allura had been working with her team for three weeks now and hardly any progress had been made. Every time they had a solid lead on Keith’s workplace or background, something happened at the last moment: her team made a mistake, or the papers went missing, or the computers glitched. For as solid and clever as her team seemed, they nearly bordered on incompetent. In her darkest moments, she wondered whether this was divine intervention punishing her for attempting to ruin the happiness of the man she once loved - still loved, in her own way. 

Deep down, she knew that Shiro had never meant to hurt her. But hurt her he had. She understood that he was suffering too, that he was confused and still navigating his newfound knowledge of himself and his sexuality. Deep, deep down, she thought he too deserved happiness; she wanted that for him, even. But he had already found it, and she? She was left behind to stew in her misery. It wasn’t fair. 

“Allura?” 

She turned her head up, the chill of the displaced air against her cheeks making her realize that she had been crying. Pidge was standing before her desk, alone. The rest of the room was empty. How long had she been crying without noticing?

“I told the rest of them to go home,” said Pidge, her voice soft and comforting. Sometimes, she felt much older than her age. 

Allura sniffed and tried to control her breathing. “Thank you, Pidge. I’m sorry about… this. I don’t know what’s gotten into me today.”

Pidge didn’t say anything and let her keep her lie. “I was wondering if you wanted to have a girls’ night tonight? I’ve always wanted to have one, but I’m so awkward around other girls and have been kind of afraid to try. If it’s you, though, I think I could do it. Would you be willing to help me?”

The older woman smiled sadly, sniffing again. Pidge didn’t need her help with anything. It wasn’t hard to see what she was actually attempting to do, but then again it didn’t seem like Pidge was trying too hard to hide it. She took the hand Pidge extended, and both pretended it was for Pidge’s benefit. 

“So uh… What do girls do on ‘Girls’ Night Out’?” asked Pidge as they walked down the sunset-lit Main Street, shivering against the wind tunnel created by the skyscrapers all around them. 

“Back in my day, it was mostly getting dressed up in one of our apartments and then going drinking at bars.” Allura glanced at Pidge out of the corner of her eye. “But I suppose that’s out of the question for the time being.” 

Pidge shot her an evil grin. “Who’s to say I don’t have a fake ID?”

_ “Out of the question _ ,” Allura repeated pointedly. “Besides, there’s a lot more we can do. We could make popcorn, watch silly movies… Have you ever had a spa night?” 

The messy-haired, bespectacled girl beside her gave her a look. “What do  _ you _ think?” 

By the time they had shopped for the necessary materials and made it back to Allura’s apartment, they were already in higher spirits. Pidge brazenly declared she was sleeping over, so they both changed into two of Allura’s silk slips and took turns applying face masks on each other while a truly mind-numbing romcom played in the background. At some point in the night, Pidge convinced Allura to make  _ her _ a drink too, and they cuddled together on the couch to watch The Twilight Zone and try to drunkenly predict the episode’s ending twist. After their third episode, neither tried to start a new one. They just sat on the couch in silence, leaning against each other in a mild buzz. 

“Hey Allura?” uttered Pidge.

Allura hummed softly in reply.

“Why do you want revenge on your ex-husband so badly? Why even spend any more energy on some guy who left?”

It was a question she had asked herself many times, and answered many times, but suddenly the answer was not so clear. “Because… he hurt me.”

“Isn’t the better revenge to not care about him, to be rightly selfish for once and go find your own happiness?”

Damn Pidge and her simple, 18-year-old wisdom. When she said it like that, life seemed so straight-forward. The answers were so clear. It was frustrating to listen to, especially when Allura’s emotions felt anything but clear. She huffed. “You wouldn’t understand, Pidge. You’re too young.”

At that, Pidge straightened up on the couch. “I’m 18.”

“That’s exactly my point. I’m almost twice your age. Relationships get complicated as you get older.”

Something dark crossed Pidge’s eyes; their soft, warm caramel tones seemed to almost glow in the flickering light of the tv screen. “Sometimes, it doesn’t have to be complicated,” she said with a stare that seemed to lay Allura’s soul bare. “I may be young, but I’m old enough to know what I want.”

Allura suppressed a shiver. It felt like Pidge was trying to say something with her unwavering gaze that Allura didn’t want to, couldn’t afford to accept. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered, closing her eyes. 

But Pidge merely moved into her space further. “Why do you pay so much attention to someone who doesn’t deserve it?  _ You,  _ Allura. You’re... amazing. You could have anything, anyone you wanted. Why does it have to be  _ him? _ ”

The older woman laughed nervously. “Thank you Pidge, but you give me too much credit. I’m just a housewi-”

“No.” Pidge’s tone left no room for argument any longer. “You’re not ‘just’ anything. You are  _ Allura _ . You’re strong. Fierce. A natural-born leader. When you walk in the room, when you speak, people turn and listen. Everyone’s drawn to you because that’s who you are: magnetic, charming, a force to be reckoned with. You’re- you’re- you’re beautiful,” she breathed out in a soft exhale.

“Pidge…” Allura’s mind had gone fuzzy. It surely had to be the alcohol, but she hadn’t thought she had drunk all that much... All she knew was that at that moment Pidge’s soulful amber eyes felt like they were burning her from the inside out, slow and succulent. This was so wrong. “Pidge, I’m old enough t-”

“Don’t you dare fucking say it,” she hissed out. “You’re- god, you’re irresistible. Your clear, blue eyes, that smile you shoot me every now and then from across the room, those soft, silver curls that always dangle  _ just _ above those tormentingly low-cut tops…” One small hand slid around Allura’s waist as another slid up to her heaving chest, cupping and squeezing in slow, certain movements. 

“We shouldn’t do this,” she tried again, but there was no life in the protest and Pidge’s gaze sparked victorious as Allura gripped the pair of slender thighs just below the night slip’s hem. They felt so tender and warm. 

Allura felt like she was truly  _ seeing _ Pidge for the first time: a grown woman in her own right, with feelings and desires that should not be dismissed. Those burning eyes below two expressive umber brows that scrunched down when she was concentrated on her computer screen and flew up when she was surprised or delighted that her code worked. Her untamed, auburn locks felt like liquid satin between her fingers; her lips slightly rough and dry as they explored the long line of Allura’s neck. 

In the back of her mind, an ever-receding voice kept up a list of reasons they shouldn’t be doing this right now: Pidge’s age, their relative work positions, Allura’s emotional state, both of their physical states. But Pidge’s hand dipped down and all reason and logic left the building. The last thing Allura remembered from the night was holding that wonderful, slight frame between her arms as it shivered with pleasure, all fire and determination, all Pidge.

~~~

Allura woke to an empty apartment and a covered plate of toast and scrambled eggs, alongside a note in Pidge’s chicken scratch: “See you at work.” 

“Oh dear.”

She walked into work as if on an infiltration mission, peering around corners, hastily crossing hallway intersections. At this point, she wasn’t even sure what she was avoiding, since Pidge would doubtless be at their mutual workstation today. She supposed she was simply attempting to delay the inevitable face-to-face meeting The Morning After.

Allura paused outside their workspace room’s doors, attempting to collect herself and adopt a professional demeanor. Her team’s muffled voices carried through from within, just barely understandable.

_ “Again, dude?! You two are way too horny!” _

_ “I’ve never seen anything like it. You two are really made for each other - it’s practically inhuman.” _

_ “I’m  _ sorry _ , it was our anniversary! What, was I supposed to say no?” _

_ “Yes,” a chorus of voices asserted emphatically. _

_ “Well, we can’t all be virtuous virgins like you, Pidge.” _

_ “Uh…” _

Allura stepped through the doors, and they all fell silent instantly. How odd. She wouldn’t have stopped them talking about it, and it wasn’t as if Allura was under the impression that her employees didn’t have sexual lives of their own. (In fact, she was acutely aware of that fact after last night.) The conversation was odd, too. Unlike her own ill-advised tryst, whatever her mysterious, partnered coworker had gotten up to last night was certainly nothing to apologize to coworkers for. Perhaps her team held more Puritan views of mixing personal life with work? That would be just her luck.

“Good morning,” she chimed evenly as she strolled towards her desk avoiding Pidge’s gaze (and consequently the rest of theirs as well). 

Scattered mumbles of, “Morning,” rippled through the room. 

It was a long day, not the least because the overnight bedroom surveillance video that greeted her this morning was once again extremely explicit. She didn’t even mind the sexual nature of it - she was no stranger to adult videos. It was the intimacy and love in her ex-husband’s and his partner’s relations that was the most difficult to watch. It was so clear in every touch and every look exchanged between them that these two people were perfectly in sync and so in love. She cut off the video early. 

Somehow, it just didn’t hold the same masochistic allure it usually had, that aching need to know, even if it was painful (or perhaps  _ because _ it was painful, because it was a way to see for herself that whatever she might have had with Shiro truly was over). Today, watching felt like a chore. Rather than painful, it felt  _ uncomfortable  _ to peer into the private moments of two strangers, as they increasingly seemed to her.

She focused instead on answering emails from various department heads and scheduling meetings with Kolivan and his sub-commanders, all the while trying her hardest to keep her sight from straying to Pidge’s desk, where a pair of burning, amber eyes was always ready to meet her gaze. Lunch felt like it would never arrive. When it did, Pidge immediately cornered her in a side hall outside the building’s cafeteria. 

“Hey.” 

“Pidge. Hello,” she attempted with deliberate cheer.

“You haven’t spoken to me once today,” Pidge replied, stepping just close enough for Allura’s pulse to quicken. 

“I- I’ve been busy with work.” When her partner’s unmoved face told her she didn’t buy it, she tried again. “I know, we need to talk. It’s just, work is not a good place to do that and-”

The sound of footsteps had both women springing apart instantly, mere seconds before Lance and 004 rounded the corner. The unmasked man gave them both a perplexed stare. 

“You two alright? You look flushed. Did something happen, my princess?”

“She’s fine,” Pidge frowned. “And as a matter of fact, we were talking about something, so if you don’t mind…” 

Allura gently placed a hand on Pidge’s small shoulder. “What Pidge meant to say is that we  _ were  _ talking about something and now we were planning on getting something to eat. 003, 004, care to join us?” 

Lance, unsurprisingly, immediately jumped on the opportunity, while 004 made some excuse about getting some time in the training room to high-tail it out of there, as usual. 

The next week continued much the same, Allura constantly making some excuse to avoid being alone with Pidge. She could not, however, avoid her own head. It killed her, what she was doing to Pidge; Pidge deserved better than a ghosted one-night stand with a cradle-robbing cougar. But it was impossible to consider the alternatives: rejecting Pidge outright, or acting on her own feelings. For Allura was no longer under any delusion as to how she felt about Pidge, to her great shame. More than once, she had woken up from dreams that made it exceedingly clear where she stood on that front. 

She felt… dirty, thinking of Pidge like that. She was practically a child.  _ Legal, _ a voice in the back of her mind said. No. She was too innocent, too sweet.  _ Brilliant, strong, _ echoed the voice. She was so small, so delicate. Images came to mind unbidden of surprisingly strong muscles flexing as Pidge arched her back in just the right way in the dim light of Allura’s bedroom. Pidge was too young, she reminded herself, but her mind supplied the touch-memory of a plump chest beneath her palms, coarse hair against her lips… 

“Argh!” She popped up from her chair, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes to banish the thought. Slowly, she lowered them to four faces turned in her direction; her team stared as if she’d grown a second head. “Haha Kolivan sent another budget spreadsheet to review… those things are terrible…” she explained faintly, then she hurriedly made her exit. 

~~~

Navigating her developing… thing… with Pidge had almost entirely drawn Allura’s attention away from her goal of chasing after her ex-husband and his spouse, but it came rushing back full force one fateful Friday with the careless placement of a manila folder. It was already past working hours in the office, and Allura had stayed behind to deliver her team’s monthly report to Kolivan’s office before the end of the quarter. 

“Allura,” Kolivan greeted as she handed him the file. “I thought Pidge was supposed to deliver this today?”

“She wasn’t feeling well, so I sent her home early. She’s been a bit down, lately.”

“That little demon? I didn’t think she could  _ get _ ill.”

“No um, I believe it might be… personal troubles.”

Kolivan simply nodded, respectful as ever of his workers’ private lives - or perhaps simply uninterested. “While you are here, I meant to send out the insurance packets for your team, if you want to take them back with you now.”

Back in the office, she dropped off each packet at its respective owner’s desk, pausing when she came to Pidge’s. It was so messy. The wood had dried rings of coffee where Pidge had carelessly placed her overflowing mug. Small electronic gadgets of questionable function littered the desktop, along with wrenches, wires, pieces of mesh cord-organizers, and half-empty packets of crisps.

“Do you want ants? Because that’s how you get ants,” Allura muttered under her breath with a fond smile. Pidge had so much personality, and it was painted all over this desk: little details that reminded Allura of tiny, precious parts of the young woman’s character. She took them all in as if they were collectibles. The way food crumbs were sprinkled all over the desk except around the mechanical keyboard, with which Pidge was extremely careful. The way the side of her computer tower was covered with stickers of cartoon robots, because Pidge found them cute. The way there were no sticky notes or papers, because Pidge believed in saving everything digitally. Except, no, that wasn’t true. Because there  _ were _ physical papers in her desk at the moment, sticking out slightly from her drawer, which had been left hanging slightly open when Pidge left in a dark, distracted haze this afternoon.

Allura froze. She shouldn’t look. She should respect Pidge’s privacy, even if this was her workplace and the folder was likely related to the job both women were working on. Allura  _ was _ her boss, though. Anything related to the job needed to be reviewed by her anyway. More than anything, she couldn’t resist gathering just one bit of information more about Pidge: her handwriting, whether she preferred using paperclips to staples,  _ anything _ . Not to mention, finding out what kind of information Pidge would store in physical form instead of simply uploading to the team’s server space.

Smile squarely on her face, she opened the manila folder… and slumped weakly into Pidge’s desk chair. It was an employee file, the type the company likely kept on all their workers in some secure location to which only Kolivan was supposed to have access (and Allura, had she thought to ask). The folder held a character sheet, with a name, address, and a list of affiliations. Attached to it was an ID portrait with a pair of familiar indigo eyes and shaggy black hair. 

**_Name_ ** _ : Keith Shirogane, né Kogane _

**_Alias_ ** _ : Akira _

**_Designation_ ** _ : Special Agent 004 _

And there, beneath the address, the contact information, and the height and eye color, she saw it. 

**_Known affiliations_ ** _ : Takashi Shirogane, Husband. Haru Shirogane, Daughter. Parents deceased. Blood relations deceased. Close contacts/known associates: Katherine ‘Pidge’ Holt, Lance McClain [SA 003], Hunk Garrett [SA 002]. _

Pidge had known. They had all known, the entire time. Allura had been the only one in the dark, the only one left behind, yet again. The betrayal stung her eyes and she carefully placed the folder back exactly as she had found it before she mindlessly crumpled it in her fists. 

Keith had been at her fingertips the entire time, sitting across from her in the same room for  _ weeks _ , hearing and seeing everything she ordered them to do to try and find him. And, oh god, the videos… He might even have been telling Shiro everything that happened. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. Agent 004. Keith was 004 and if she hadn’t been an  _ idiot _ and simply asked for information on her  _ own employee and team member _ , she would have known. If she hadn’t  _ stupidly  _ agreed to respect his privacy…! 

‘It was just a personal quirk,’ Lance had said. ‘Keith was just paranoid about his personality.’ 

It made her wonder whether looking into her team member’s name earlier would even have helped; clearly her team would have done anything to protect his true identity. She was currently looking at physical evidence that Pidge,  _ her _ Pidge, had even broken into top-secret company storage just to steal and hide his employee file. Suddenly she realized why all her plans had failed at the last minute. Why her team always suffered last-minute technical issues or a crucial document would get lost before it got to Allura. 

Everything built in her mind until she felt something break inside her.

She laughed bitterly, because what else was left to her to do? She had lost everything. Then again, perhaps she was looking at this the wrong way. Betrayal, love, everything be damned: she had been looking for Keith, and now she had him in the palm of her hand. She was even in a unique position to fully exploit this. Come Monday morning, everything would be put to rights.


	3. Chapter 3

“What is it, babe?” said Shiro from where he lounged on the couch getting his metallic ‘fingernails’ painted sparkly pink by Haru. 

Keith sighed and dragged himself over with the giant bowl of popcorn. “Just work stuff. We’re still on that big project, and sometimes it feels like it’ll never end. Honestly, I don’t even even see how it can possibly end happily.”

Shiro shrugged with the shoulder that wasn’t being held down by a tiny tyrant’s tiny hand. “What’s the worst that can happen if it fails? Someone dies?” He laughed, light and airy - a clashingly innocent laugh for such a dark joke, especially considering he actually _had_ killed people during his brief stint as a supervillain.

Keith chuckled nervously. “Umm, yeah - me.”

His husband’s joking demeanor dropped immediately. “What?! Keith, are you in danger? Do you need me to kill someone?”

“Whoa, whoa! Calm down. Why is murder the _first_ remedy you jumped to? Also, I thought we agreed not to use the ‘K’ word in front of…” and he jerked his head towards where Haru continued painting Shiro’s nails without a single care.

Shiro’s eyebrows shot up and he held his free hand to his mouth in a gesture far too adorable for such a muscular man. “Oops.” He turned to their daughter with a serious face. “Haru, darling, what do we think about ‘killing’ in this household?” 

“Killing is wrong, unless they started it,” she chanted in a bored monotone that she had most definitely picked up from Keith. 

“Haru, _no!”_ Shiro gasped. “Killing is wrong, _period_ …” He paused, thinking, then finished with, “...but sometimes it’s necessary, if they started it.” Turning to Keith, he added like an aside, “For her safety. I don’t want her thinking she can’t defend herself. Did _you_ teach her that first answer?”

Keith grinned, then schooled his expression into one of guileless innocence. “I also don’t want our daughter to get hurt. Besides, she’s an angel. If she ends up killing someone, they probably deserved it.” 

“Keith,” Shiro sighed, shaking his head. “Why am _I_ the one having to play shoulder-angel here? I owned an evil lair! You’re supposed to be the good guy. My knight in shining, virtuous armor.”

“Alright, I guess I can be that for you, if you want,” the younger man sighed dramatically as he cozied up to Shiro’s side. “Didn’t know that was the roleplay for tonight. Mmf!”

Shiro clapped a hand over his mouth with a reprimanding smirk. “Behave.”

“Is that a threat, _sir?_ It’s not exactly intimidating coming from a man who was bullied by a little girl into having his nails painted sparkly pink.”

His husband just observed his messy, glittery nails with a contented smile. “Who said she did? I was the one who asked for this color.”

They spent a blissful, loving night together as a family, and Keith forgot for the moment all about his work troubles until he walked into the office Monday morning to see all three of his friends’ desks empty. Strange. They usually made it in before the chronically-tardy Keith. 

“Good morning 004,” said Allura, walking over with a frappuccino he automatically accepted but didn’t drink - he wasn’t a fan of overly-ornamental coffee. 

“Mornin’. The others aren’t in yet?”

Allura smiled, just a shade off from sincere. “No. They won’t be coming in today. I emailed them over the weekend to let them know that today was a departmental holiday and they shouldn’t come in to work.”

“Oh.” Keith frowned, looking over at his desk and mentally preparing to pack up and head back home to Shiro and Haru. “I didn’t get that email.”

“No, indeed. That is because I did not send it to you.”

Keith whipped around to look at Allura, but the last thing he saw was a thick book coming towards his face before everything went dark.

~~~

He woke to a familiar sensation of constraint. For a moment, he thought he was back in Shiro’s lair, under that menacing laser, awaiting his doom. He blinked blearily and took in the creamy bright surroundings and distinct lack of giant laser. It wasn’t Shiro’s lair. It was too coordinated.

“Finally awake,” he heard a familiar voice say. A soft accent, a melodic lilt... 

“Allura?” he rasped out. His throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton. “What the hell are you doing?”

She bent over the examination table to which he was tied down, tucking back his fringe in a mockery of a tender caress. Oh my god. His mask was gone. 

“Allura, wait. I can explain-”

“ _Weeks._ Working under me, in front of my very nose.”

He winced. “Allura, _please.”_

“Shut up, Keith.” She smiled then, as if she enjoyed finally being able to call him by his real name. 

“Okay, look. I’ll say it, alright? I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’ve been hurting so much. Neither Shiro nor I meant to cause you any pain. We just- it couldn’t be helped. We fell in lo-”

 _“Shut up,”_ she hissed. 

“...What are you going to do?”

“Why don’t you ask me instead what I’ve _already_ done?”

He knit his brows. “What did you do?”

“I sent a little candygram to my ex-husband, letting him know I have his precious biker punk. At first I thought I might want to give him a series of puzzles to solve, clues to lead him here, you know? Shiro’s always liked puzzles... But then I thought, I really don’t want to wait a single second more for the show to begin,” and she began giggling madly.

Jesus, she’d lost it.

“What show?” Keith struggled uselessly against the binds. They were fastened tightly around his wrists and ankles, and the snarky part of his brain wryly noted the irony of having been put in this situation by both the husband _and_ the wife now. The rest of his brain, however, was reduced to one blaring red alarm. “Allura, _please_. Don’t hurt him! Please, I’ll do anything! I- do you want me to divorce him? I’ll divorce him! Just please don’t hurt him or Haru!”

“Haru? What kind of monster do you think I am, to hurt my own daughter? No, she and I were the two innocent parties in all this, and after today, it will be only her.” A tremor ran through the building they were in, shaking plaster dust from the ceiling and walls, but Allura merely continued flipping switches and turning knobs in a nearby control panel, casually watching what appeared to be grainy security cam feeds. “Maybe in the past I would have wanted you to divorce him, threatened you or him or both of you in a desperate attempt to win him back. But all this time keeping you under surveillance has at the very least taught me one thing: that I’m not getting my husband back, regardless of what happens. The fact of the matter is, he doesn’t love me - not in the way that I want, that I need. He may not even be biologically capable of it. But he does love you.” 

Allura grabbed Keith’s cheeks with one surprisingly strong, slender hand, then squeezed painfully. Muted sounds of explosions could be heard now, coming from beyond the walls of the interrogation room. 

“And you love him. You love each other. How sweet,” she bit out, checking the tightness of the straps that held Keith, then rolling up the sleeves of her blouse and tying back her long silver hair in a low ponytail. “So what, you ask, am I going to do? I’m going to do to you _both_ what was done to me. I’m taking away a husband.”

With a blast that shook the building, the far wall exploded into chunks of plaster and cement that blew across the room. The dust slowly settled to reveal a figure outlined by the electric purple glow that lit his mechanical arm, an arm which sizzled as it powered down.

“Keith!”

“Shiro!”

Allura activated a glowing blue whip she pulled from her belt. “Hello, _dear._ You made it here in record time. I guess love really is the greatest motivator.” 

“Allura,” Shiro growled low as he approached slowly, voice straining under the effort needed to control it. “I understand you’re upset, but you don’t have to do this. We’ll go to a cafe. You can yell and tell me what a horrible husband I was, call me all the terrible things that I deserve, and I swear I’ll just sit there and take it. I’ll listen to whatever you have to say, for however long you want, just let Keith go.”

“Well see, if I let Keith go, that would make it difficult for me to carry out my plan to capture you and make you watch as I slowly torture and kill your husband, then do the same to you while he’s still conscious enough to watch.” 

“What the fuck,” Keith breathed. “Shiro, sweetheart, your ex is fucking _insane.”_

“Dearest, if we make it out of this, remind me to ask about all the crazy exes _you_ probably have.”

“None of them have tried to _kill me!”_

“‘Dearest,’ he says,” Allura muttered. Both men looked at her. She chuffed out a dark laugh, staring at nothing in particular. “It’s suddenly coming back in vivid clarity, Shiro, that you only ever called _me_ ‘dear.’” 

Tears sprang to her eyes even as they twisted in rage. Shiro could only watch, heartbroken.

Allura cracked her whip, and Shiro lunged forward, narrowly avoiding being hit. Where he had stood before, a scorched line bisected the floor. The whip flew out again, a violent buzz accompanying it as it whistled past and nicked Shiro’s flesh arm. 

“You missed,” he grinned, and tackled his former wife to the ground. 

“Did I?”

At the touch of a button, the whip retracted into its holder, flying wildly back and forth as it did so, landing a lash straight across Shiro’s back. He cried out in pain, and Allura scrambled to get out from underneath him. While he was still reeling from the hit, she aimed a straight punch to his nose and a kick at his chest that sent him sprawling. Before she could get in another hit, he rolled aside, diving for the examination table and cutting through Keith’s restraints with the powered arm. 

“Fine.” Allura rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck. “I’ll take on both of you.”

Still breathing heavily, Shiro forced out a chuckle. “I have no doubt you could,” he said, touching his non-metallic fingers to his nose and examining the blood on them with a worried look. “That’s why I brought back up.”

“Allura!” called Pidge from the impromptu entranceway Shiro had made in the wall. 

“Pidge?” the woman responded softly, looking behind her. 

With a mutual nod to his husband, Keith grabbed Allura from behind, immobilizing her arms by her side, while Shiro grabbed her whip and crushed the mechanism in his weaponized hand. She strained against Keith's arms, but he only tightened his hold then maneuvered her around so Shiro could walk up and look her in the eye. 

“Don’t hurt her!” cried Pidge, dashing over.

“Go ahead. Kill me,” Allura spit out. “I almost just killed your beloved, right? Go, do it. Keith now has Shiro, and Shiro has Keith. I’m the loose end. Expendable.”

Shiro balked. “Kill you?” He sounded horrified. “Allura, no, god. No. I mean, yes, obviously I’m pretty upset you kidnapped my husband and planned to torture and kill us both, but… Allura, I could never kill you. You’re important to me, too. You were my wife for many years, and my best friend for even longer. You’re the mother of my daughter, and always will be. You probably know me better than anyone at this point in time, Keith included. [“Hey what the hell?”] I would never hurt you on purpose; you know that.”

“...What?” It was a gentle word, a little sad, a little broken. 

“I’m sorry; I should have made that even more clear from the start. I really am sorry about how things happened, Allura. I won’t apologize for loving Keith, but… I apologize for hurting you. You could never be expendable. Not to me.”

Shiro smiled softly at her in a way that might have made Keith jealous under different circumstances, but a near-brush with death always tended to put things in perspective. 

Allura sniffed. “You shouldn’t spare my life. How can you be sure you can trust me?”

Her ex-husband simply shrugged. “I suppose I can’t be sure, but that won’t ever stop me from continuing to try.”

They both laughed breathlessly, disbelief and relief in the sound. Keith released her arms. 

“Do you think you might finally be ready to visit Haru? She’s been missing you an awful lot, you know,” said Shiro. 

“I… I need a bit more time. I need to figure out who I am outside of being a mother and housewife. But, tell her that I love her and miss her too. I just have some things to take care of first.”

He nodded. They both awkwardly shifted in place for a few seconds before Pidge finally walked up and reached out for Allura’s hand.

“Are you okay?”

“Pidge,” the older woman shot her a smile. “What are you doing here?”

Pidge chuckled nervously. “Well, I guess now that you know about Keith and… everything... I can tell you. I was actually talking to Shiro when he received your message.”

“...of course. Of course you know Shiro too.”

“We all met him when he and Keith got together... I’m sorry I lied about Keith, Allura. He’s like a brother to me - I couldn’t let you hurt him. I thought everything would be okay with time, that maybe you were starting to forget about him and Shiro and then you would look at me properly...” 

Keith and Shiro shared a look and started to slowly and silently back away. They heard something like a sob coming from one of the women, and the last thing they saw before leaving the interrogation room was the two women locked in an intimate embrace. 

“You came to save me,” said Keith when they had finally made it out of the building. 

His husband turned to face him. “Of course. I’ll always come for you, Keith. As many times as it takes.”

“I want you to know that I could make a raunchy joke here, but as a mature adult I’m choosing to hold back.”

Shiro grinned and leaned in for a kiss.

~~~

Keith and Shiro sat on the bench’s cracked plastic sheeting, both watching with some consternation the pair of women on the opposite bench as they giggled and whispered to each other. Pidge sat on Allura’s lap and smugly explained the science behind the perfect bowling toss to a seemingly impressed Allura, even though Shiro knew for a fact that she had been the captain and star of her university’s bowling team. 

“Wow, really?” Allura gasped, fluttering her long eyelashes at the flustered but clearly pleased Pidge.

“Yeah, so umm. If you just try that, you might get some better results. Not that you’re not already doing well! You’re- you’re so good at it. At everything...” she trailed off dreamily.

God, it was embarrassing to watch. 

“I’m going to get more nachos,” Keith grumbled, and Shiro immediately jumped up and volunteered to help carry the snacks. Anything to get away from this heart-filled disaster. “Why are we here, Shiro?” his husband griped when they were sufficiently far away from the saccharine display Allura and Pidge were putting on. 

“Because we’re their friends, and good friends support each other in their relationships,” Shiro replied, though he too was starting to regret agreeing to a double-date at a bowling alley. Maybe the movie theater would have been a better option: at least then they wouldn’t have to watch Allura and Pidge shamelessly flirt with each other for three straight hours.

“They don’t even notice we’re here! We could leave _right now_ and I bet they wouldn’t even realize until it was time to leave,” said Keith as if hoping Shiro would take him up on the offer.

Shiro simply shook his head and directed his husband by the shoulders towards the concession stand. It would be better not to admit to Keith how tempting that offer sounded at the moment. “Pidge was nervous about the date. She wanted us here for moral support.”

“Hmph. I’m still not sure about Allura dating my precious little sort-of-sister. Pidge is way too young for her.”

“Hey! Allura is a perfectly great person - I would know, I chose to marry her.”

“Yeah, a perfectly great person when she’s not trying to torture and kill the ex she’s hung up on.”

The concession stand worker stared at them in alarm, handing over their drinks with a slight tremble in his hands.

“Babe, are you still on that? She _said_ she was _sorry_.”

Keith crossed his arms, making Shiro have to carry the full tray of nachos and the drinks by himself. “Forgive me if it takes me a little while to accept an apology for trying to _murder me and my husband.”_

“I mean, _I_ tried to kill you too…”

“You’re different,” muttered Keith with a pout so cute Shiro just had to bend down and kiss the edge of his mouth.

“By which you mean, you had the hots for me so it’s okay?”

Keith pressed down a smile as they settled back into their seat.

“You two sure did take your time,” Pidge had the gall to remark.

“I’m surprised you noticed,” Keith quipped back instantly. “I’m just gonna say it now: I don’t think the bowling alley would take too kindly to you two getting down to it in the middle of the lane.”

Pidge flushed, but Allura laughed airily. His ex-wife these days looked the happiest that Shiro had ever seen her. As much as he wanted to validate Keith’s concerns about the age gap between the two women, selfishly he couldn’t help but feel relieved at how good Pidge had been for Allura’s well-being. She finally seemed happy and at peace. It wasn’t all Pidge, of course, but the young woman’s unwavering support played no small part in keeping Allura’s spirits up. 

Besides, thought Shiro, he trusted Allura to be careful with Pidge. In what would have been an embarrassing over-sharing of information had everyone involved not already witnessed Shiro and Keith in a state no friend should ever have had to witness, Shiro had been informed that Allura was purposefully taking the relationship extremely slowly - much more slowly than Pidge would have liked.

“Are we still on for game night this Friday?” 

“Yes please, Hunk won’t shut up about his new tabletop RPG until we finally give it a whirl.”

“No, just- no,” said Shiro. 

“Come on dear, you might like it. You can be a paladin, just like you’ve always wanted!” Allura said, and Shiro did not miss the way Pidge’s eyes flashed for a moment. “Ah, sorry Keith - force of habit.”

Shiro turned to see Keith mirroring the look that had crossed Pidge’s face. Swallowing a laugh, he wrapped an arm around his husband’s delicate shoulders and felt him slowly relax into the touch. “Hmm, only if my dearest husband Keith plays the princess I have to rescue.”

Keith spluttered. “No way! Why don’t _you_ play the princess, and _I_ the rescuer?”

“Why does it have to be a princess who gets rescued? Maybe we can rescue a very weak prince,” protested Pidge. 

“ _Thank_ you, Pidge. Or even just a strong prince who got lured into a trap and tied up after the princess knocked him over the head with a heavy book.”

“Too soon, Allura. Too soon,” said Keith, pretending like he wasn’t trying to hold back a smile.

The rest of them broke out in wild cackling. Allura nuzzled Pidge’s neck, whispering something in her ear until she finally relaxed, too. 

The night ended with Allura sweeping the game and attributing her victory entirely to Pidge’s sage coaching. Outside the beat-up bowling alley, the two couples parted ways with warm hugs and plans to carpool to work in the morning, then each couple headed home under the fading sunset, hand in hand and hearts in love.

THE END.


End file.
